Has anyone installed XP on their Acer 1410 and got the hotkey software to workproperly? I can get everything to work (sound/bluetooth/video out) except lcd brightness. FN + left or right arrow key does not do anything.

My FZ of 28 months old has suddenly started making a faint buzzing noise from the screen.

At first I thought it was the fan, but I realized it's the LCD. I can't change the brightness for some reason using Windows 7 but it's on Max Bright. I've seen some threads of people having this problem on lowered brightness levels but this is happening on full.

When I shut the lid, the buzzing stops. It can be heard if I stand behind the laptop or place my ear beside either rear corner of the laptop.

I got my Dell 1557 about a month ago and for a while, it seemed just fine with my display brightness.

I could change it to however bright I want it to be. Then today, when I turned on my computer, my settings for my display brightness was at the highest when it normally is in the middle.

At first I thought nothing of it because I could easily change it with the F4 and F5 buttons, but after I logged on and tried to change it, nothing happened. Not even after I restarted the computer or reinstall the ATI Catalyst Center.

I have Inspiron 9300. Unfortunately, my geforce 6800 died and I bought as a replacement x300 which was installed by a laptop repair service (they fixed other thins too.

It was due to power surge). Everything works but when I boot up the computer or when the display is set to be turned off in the power settings in Windows instead of being actually turned off the display is on and is all white.

Also brightness regulation does not work via Fn +arrows keys and is set to maximum and the white color is so intense that I get a headache after a couple of hours staring at the screen.

The function (FN 5 ) hotkey button combo do not work, other hotkey commands like volume,sleep,screen blank all work, the note book has an external data show connected to it and it will not connect with the data show using FN5,several different data shows have been tried to no avail, the notebook is running XP home.

I have looked at device manager and there are no yellow exclamation marks apparent.

I have been looking for Acer 7720 hotkey drivers but in vain. Can a good soul direct me to an appropriate place to look in? I've looked on Acer's driver download page but it doesn't list anything regarding hotkeys. Btw I'm running windows 7 (if you can find a driver for vista, it'll do).

how, when you press the "e" empowering technology button the toolbar pops up?

And when you switch on the bluetooth module, the WLAN switch, and even the FN+UpArrow and DownArrow and the little green text at the bottom of the screen comes up? Well, in my system it's not working anymore.

Last thing I remembered that happened was my Norton IS 2009 detected a virus and prompted to restart the system, and so I did, and then things started to go weird. For instance, the touchpad driver needed to be reinstalled, and then I could see that my startup items DRASTICALLY got reduced, looking at the task manager. I tried reinstalling the Empowering Technology Framework, but still it doesn't work. Any of you guys experienced issues like this?

Actually, this notebook has a long history in modifying MBR and BCD......

--SOME OF THE HISTORY--"SKIP IT IF YOU WANT TO"----------------------------------------------------------------------My original problem was to burn the recovery disks, as the recovery manager software couldn't see the recovery partition. That's because when I first bought the notebook I wanted to divide its hard disk into several partitions, but that was not the mistake....The mistake was using Partition magic to do so....It messed with my partition table (I guess).

However, I was able to retore the "LINK" between the recovery partition and the recovery manager software by applying the recovery partition's boot sectors of a friend of mine with a similar laptop on mine.

That was done after alot of MBR experiments to find out how to fix that problem.

So now I can burn the recovery disks, but I wont. The reason is that I want to be sure that the recovery partition functions properly before applying the "ONE TIME" burning process...............

I was wondering if I buy a Vaio with Windows 7, can I wipe it clean and install a different OS (Xp, or Linux) from my own CDs? Or does it only allow to install the OS that sony provided in the Recovery Partition?

I just tried out the Windows 7 beta on my SR 220J/B and everything seems to work great except for the Fn+F5/F6 brightness controls.

Win7 seemed to work well out of the box, and I've installed the Alps and Synaptics drivers, along with the Upek fingerprint software (btw, I can't log in to Windows using my fingerprint, even though the log-in screen has the fingerprint icon...). I also installed "Vaio Event Service 2 (4.2.1.12090) -- All OS" from the Drivers & Software post, and the volume/mute Fn key controls work, but not the brightness.

I have upgraded to W7 pro, ran the companion DVD and everything is good except the FN brightness key (also changing brightness in W7 itself) they don't work.

I have been to the sonystyle.ca website and down loaded apparently the correct utility settings driver 5.0.0.07280 for W7 Pro 32-bit (at least it says on the website its compatable) and when I try to run it, it says it's for Vista only.

I own a Vaio VGN-FE770g, and I have recently upgraded my RAM to 2gb plus I bought a SanDisk 4GB Extreme IV Memory Stick Pro Duo to utilize the windows 7 readyboost utility.

I thought this would help with my gaming but it isn't the case. I'm not a hardcore gamer, but I play Age of Empires III a lot and I still can't run it at any decent resolution without the screen freezing when a battle is taking place (any other time it is fine).

I looked into the Vaio's graphics capabilities and it said about the dynamic allocated RAM, which i further read can be modified (?). Could anyone offer a simple step by step how to do this? (or some insight as to whether it could/should be done at all).

I upgraded from Vista to Windows 7 on my SZ5. Was surprised at how much works out of the box (fingerprint sensor, drivers etc) but the one glaring bug I found is that when I close the lid and the monitor shuts off, when I reopen it the brightness controls (FN+F5 and FN+F6) no longer work.

I also notice that the brightness controls in Windows' power options Control Panel disappears.

I need to restart my computer to resolve this (similar problems by other users: Sony Vaio SZ1XP - Windows 7 RC ). Does anyone have a solution? Thanks!

the brightness keeps resetting after a period of time, I set it all the way to the lowest because the room I work in is very dim, then after a few minutes the brightness keeps resetting to a brighter setting

I just installed a fresh copy of Windows 7 on my Sony VPCF115FM laptop, and I was wondering what I need to install to get the brightness control to work. I already tried the video drivers, shared library, and notebook utilities from this site:

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But nothing seems to affect the brightness, even though I do see the brightness bar now when I press the appropriate keys.

i am using my TT in the dark, once i turn the lights off in my room, the screen becomes dim. So it kinda makes it hard to see the keyboard. So i have to turn the lights on so i can see it clearly, how can i prevent this?

I have checked the power plan and i have all of them set up to maximum brightness. I just want the screen to remain as bright as it does when the lights are on. It was dim when i purchased my TT a few months back. Then i did a restore and it was cool. Then i did another restore and it went back to being dim. This was even though the restores when done were the exact same to a tee. I didn't mess with any settings.

The only thing that is making me hesitant is the screen brightness of the z. With the plug in and full brightness, it's not that bright, at least NO WHERE NEAR as bright as the macbook pro with high res anti-glare. Is this normal?

How many of you Z owners find the screen brightness too low? Even at full, it feels dim.

I recently upgraded by Windows Vista 32bit business VaioZ690C Laptop to windows 7 professional. So far, everything has worked out great, but I have a couple questions:

1) How do I get my brightness keys to work? I cannot increase / decrease it

2) When I installed Windows 7, many of the Windows Vista drivers rolled right onto Windows 7, and would absolutely perfectly, do I still need to uninstall them all and install the "windows 7 version" or is this fine.

i just downgraded my sz680 to xp using the driver on sony website, i got everything to work except the brightness control, i can't use the FN key to save battery, it's always at max brightness, only 2.5 hours, i need at least 4 hours like i used to have using vista to survive on campus during the day,

Does anyone know how to turn off the beep the function key makes when you change the volume or brightness on the SR model? I have Vista, and the Event Service folder doesn't show up in my program files so I can't change the pi

I am having problems to reduce the brightness of my screen (i cant use it full brightness)

What happens is that if i press FN + F3 or F4 (sound) it works perfectly, but when I try FN+F5 or F6 I can listen to the sound that i pressed that, I can see the little black window with the bars but it does not reduce.

how to fix it?

again, it is a VAIO VGN SZ340P. Windows XP profissionalSP3

I just realized that if i change from speed to stamina on my keyboard, the FN+brightness works properly

received the new Z 7 days ago, great is just a great little notebook, the best i had (coming from an SZ premium).

The only thing that is killing me is the auto brightness, the resolution is the 1920x and in dim light the brightness is going down, after 1 hour my eyes are red. The only thing that i can do is putting the lamp directly on top of the keyboard so the sensor adjusts the brightness to the maximum level.

What can i do? I can't find a way to turn down the auto brightness....

I just tonight noticed that the F5/F6 keys do not work after the machine wakes from sleep. It works fine after I reboot. But after sleep the OSD will show up when I hit F5 or F6. The display gauge will move to the left TWO positions when I hit F5 but only once. If I hit F5 again, nothing happens. If I hit F6 it moves to the right TWO positions again only one time. In both cases there is NO change to brightness.

I tried to log off and back on to see if it has any effect. It did not. I'll reboot now and the hibernate to see if the problem recurs coming out of hibernation.

I am running Win7 ultimate 32 bit.

UPDATE: Well this is strange. I rebooted and the F5/F6 keys worked fine of course. I hibernated and then came back out and they still worked fine. I logged off and back on and again they were fine. So this seems to be ONLY a sleep issue.

If any of you have an FZ model running Win7 32 bit. Can you try this and report your findings?

I have recently purchased a used Vaio laptop, model number VGN-FJ180P.

When I first got it, the battery was dead. So I assumed that my problem with the screen brightness was due to needing a new battery. Basically, when I use the screen brightness keys, I see the meter change on-screen, but none of the settings have any effect on the actual brightness of the LCD screen itself.

I spent a lot of time cleaning out the junk, unnecessary programs, etc. Then I proceeded to install all necessary Windows updates, as well as all the necessary Vaio updates. I have run extensive maintenance on this laptop, and have made sure that it is malware free. I then proceeded to read up on possible Fn key problems, and made sure I had all of the right software installed to ensure proper functionality of Fn keys. To be clear, all my Fn keys work fine, and all onscreen meters/graphics that pertain to them show up. It's just that the screen brightness can't be changed...............

problem is, using the FN keys, the brightness dialog is showing, but I can't increase or decrease it. brightness does not show up on power managment nor on mobilty center. the power plans from vaio ("VAIO optimized") are showing, but still if I pull the plug screen stays on maximum brightness...

I deleted a bunch of programs that I didn't know what they were.. i think i deleted something important because I cant adjust the brightness on my laptop anymore.. either with the brightness buttons or manually.. is there a driver or seomthing I can download again to gain this function back?